White trash bush woman

My friend Scott came to visit for the weekend and I think my maman was excited to show off two white people for all her guests. In Lobogo, everyone calls her “yovo” which is the term for a foreigner or white person. Angele is definitely black, but she has an albino daughter and has had three different white women live in her concession over the last six years, so she has gotten the nickname, “Maman Yovo”. A few weeks ago, some white people were visiting my village and saw my albino concession sister and asked to take a picture of her. Angele agreed and then said something along the lines of, “You know…we have a real white person who lives here too…”. She brought them to my house to greet me. I had been taking a nap and was extremely disoriented when all of a sudden there were three white women standing outside my door. I got up and walked outside and I must have looked like a crazy white bush woman to them. I was wearing only a tissue wrap and my hair was disheveled and my normally adequate French was hindered by my sleepy state. I could barely form a coherent sentence and the fresh from Europe Frenchwomen looked horrified to find someone in such a sorry state in a remote African village. “You live here? By yourself?” They asked with a mixture of confusion and pity. It was ridiculous. There have been a lot of random white people in my village lately which is strange and they always seem to catch me at my most unkempt. But I guess I can't fault that since I am in an unkempt state quite often here. The problem is that I only notice it when I occasionally go some place nice in Cotonou and instantly realize that I look like a homeless person and that it isn't necessary to look like a bum all the time here. Honestly, I think Peace Corps Volunteers are like the white trash of the aid workers in Benin. We always have less money and look so much more stressed out and dirty than any other people I've seen here.

8 months in (a month later)

So depending on when I get to post this I have been in Benin for about 9 months. That is about 1/3 of my total time here, which is crazy to consider. It feels like a lifetime and yet it feels like just yesterday I left home. It is hard to reconcile my two worlds with each other. I knew when I made the decision to come here that my life would change completely. The most interesting part is how many ways I have changed that I didn’t expect. It is both beautiful and terrifying to realize how much the people here, both volunteers and Beninese, have come to be almost my entire world. That doesn’t diminish my relationships with people back home, but it is really difficult to imagine life back at home while I am here in the bush. January was a rough month for me and I even considered maybe coming home, but with the support of other volunteers and a change of perspective, I am becoming incrementally more happy here. I was getting very frustrated with teaching and life in this tiny village but I have been doing a lot of little things to make myself happier. I’ve started trying to sing a song or play a game with my students at the end of every class. Even when I have a bad day and the kids are horrible or don’t understand what I was trying to teach, it makes me feel much better to leave the classroom to a chorus of Beninese children butchering, “We are family! I’ve got all my sisters with me!” or “L is for the way you look at me!”.
A few weeks ago my maman, Angele, had a fete for her father who died in December and it was ridiculously awesome. I had heard from the previous volunteer that my concession papa, Quirin, is one of the wealthiest men in Lobogo, but it is kind of hard to grasp that when we have no running water and sketchy electricity. Although, seeing as how all the houses surrounding our concession are mud huts and we live in a cement house, maybe I should have known. Beninese people love to throw parties, especially when the deceased was really old. Angeles father used to own a buvette (bar) in town and was pretty well known in Lobogo. I never met him because he got sick before I came to Lobogo. Angele told me about the fete two months ago and I expected a reasonable sized party that lasted all day. Little did I know. Every day of the week leading up to the fete there seemed to be more and more women and children congregating in my concession bringing water, huge cauldrons, and food items. I really loved this week a lot. The women were overjoyed and entertained when I offered to do any simple task to help out. They thanked me profusely when I washed like five dishes one afternoon and in my mind they responded like this when I sat with them on mats in the concession pealing garlic, “Look at the yovo pealing garlic! Isn’t she cute!!” It was beautiful to see the network of women who came to offer help. One afternoon a group of about twenty women came into the concession with basins of water on their head to help fill the huge jugs of water that were to be used to prepare, cook, and clean. They called Angele out and sang to her and offered her the water. Then they saw me standing there with a Beninese baby on my hip and proceeded to sing to me and dance around me. It was amazing. It really made me think about all the women I have in my life who have helped me and supported me over time and miss them a lot.
The fete was scheduled to happen on Saturday. By Friday night there were two canopies set up in the concession and four huge speakers. The music was turned on Friday night and did not stop until Monday afternoon. People came to greet Angele, offer condolences, and eat and drink for three days straight. When a new group of people came into the concession, the dj would yell, “Wuezo! Wuezo!” which is welcome in Sahoue and that group would find some empty seats. Angele and her husband would them come to greet them and thank them for coming. Then one of the women (family members, friends, neighbors, etc.) would bring the group beers and the first round of food, which was rice and goat meat. I know for a fact that it was goat meat because I had to listen to the goats being slaughtered and hacked apart every morning before the fete-ing started. There are always goats wondering around my concession but on Friday three special goats had been brought into the concession and tied to a wooden post. Saturday morning I woke up to a mysterious hacking sound and theorized on what it might be but I didn’t realize it was goats bone being hacked apart with hatchets until Sunday morning when I walked out of my house and saw a guy doing it. The second round of food was pate or akassa, both of which are made with corn flower and sort of the consistency of mashed potatoes accompanied by a sauce and fish and eaten with your hands. After this there was a lot of dancing and yelling and funness to be had by all.

That's Actually A Dog That You're Eating...

I just ate a potentially E.Coli filled half-raw omelet sandwich. My second gas can ran out of gas just as I was about to flip my possibly delicious onion omelet over in the skillet. My options at this point were numbered and pretty obvious. I could walk over to my concession maman’s while wearing my requisite panya house wrap, raw egg filled skillet in hand, or I could flip the omelet over as fast as possible and attempt to use the remaining heat in the pan to partially finish the job. Guess which option I went with?!? I placed the soggy omelet onto a loaf of bread, which managed to soak up/disguise some of the raw egg goop. It was surprisingly delicious. No one told me one of my areas of personal growth in the Peace Corps would involve discovering what new lows I can bring myself to where food is involved.

Here is a list of gross or just plain sad things that I or PCVs I know have eaten:

-Crystallized slugs disguised as pretty pink candy in Niger

-Little round mystery meatballs suspected to be goat testicles

-A piece of goat that appeared to contain both teeth and a hairy nostril

-An entire log sized igname after an ill fated first trip to the marche in village

-About 10 pieces of gum all at once that exploded from the container and landed on the ground

-Mashed ignames mixed with a potentially 2 year old Mac n Cheese cheese packet left by a previous volunteer

I had a dream recently in which I was hurrying around a grocery store, Super Market Sweep style, and frantically putting everything I wanted to eat in my shopping cart. I stopped short at one of those giant plastic jars of dill pickles that appeared to be illuminated from above by something more than mere supermarket fluorescent lights. As I excitedly reached into the jar to get a pickle, a pair of tongs appeared in my hands and the jar turned into a hot dog dispenser. Next to it were all the ketchup, mustard, and relish you could ever want. As I continued through the store, the hot dog in my hand turned into a peanut butter container that I began attacking with my bare fingers. I’m not exactly sure what point I’m trying to make in telling that story, but seriously, how awesome is the idea of a huge pickle jar/hot dog dispenser?!? Also, think about how much more tolerable our mystery meat food would be here if it came in a delightful hot dog shape and was served on a bun with endless amounts of ketchup and mustard. A hot dog made of real dog meat? It’s at least got to be more visually appealing than my runny, undercooked excuse for an omelet sandwich.